They call me Sonic.
by Orin
Summary: Sonic the hedgehog is a hero, everybody knows this. But he's also a person; mortal; fallible. And people have faults, they have hidden fears, they have thoughts that they hide. Sometimes even from themselves.


Disclaimers; I don't own Sonic, he belongs to Sega, and I'm pretty sure they'd frown upon me writing him like this... *Shrugs*  
Title: They Call Me Sonic.  
Spoilers: Not really... *Thinks* Nope. I don't think so.  
Warnings: Um... Definite strangeness ahead..... Be prepared.... AU, certainly... Angst galore, darkish and just plain odd....  
Pairings: None.  
Author: Orin.  
Archive: Wanna give it a home....?   
Rating: PG-13.... Yes... *Gasps* It has a swear word. *Faints*  
Timeline; Not in concurrence with any of my other Sonic fics. This is another stand alone story.  
  
As I said, another strange fic for me. Probably just a one shot, but who knows. I might continue it but I really don't see how... Any ideas?   
I really have to stop the strangeness though. ^_^  
  
  
My inspiration... Sean Catlett; Sonic fanfic writer.   
  
I read one fic, was floored. Read another one and nearly fainted.... And it just got better. I won't babble about how unique and expressive his writing is. You should see for yourself. He's on Fanfiction, net. ^_^  
  
This fic was built on pure inspiration.  
  
Thanks Sean and don't ever stop writing.  
  
  
  
  
THEY CALL ME SONIC.  
  
  
  
"Wars are raging. Lives are scattered. Innocence is lost, and hopes are shattered.  
  
The old are forgotten. The children are forsaken. In this world we're living in, is there anything sacred?"  
  
Faith Hill- There Will Come A Day  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
I let her die.  
  
I can feel something well up inside of me. It's a vaguely familiar sensation, and I search my brain for a comparison.   
  
Oh, yeah. I remember.   
  
This is what it felt like when I was about to cry.   
  
There are no tears left now, just this strange, unsettling sensation. Just one more thing I've failed at - I can't even cry now.   
Perversely, all my mind can come up with is an image of a bucket being lowered into a well.  
The bucket comes up empty and then it's turned upside down in a desperate search for water, all that comes out are a few grains of dust that blow away too quickly to be caught.  
  
But I can remember what it feels like to really cry.   
  
I can.   
  
I know that it builds up inside, swelling like a wave. Then it comes crashing to the shore; and the tears spill and go streaming down your face. When you really cry, your chest heaves with the force of the sobs and your face contorts.   
It's an ugly sight.  
Your entire being is focused on that one act. Expressing your despair. It's a physical, emotional, mental, spiritual event and it can consume you completely.   
  
It's useless.  
  
And now, it's just a shadowy echo somewhere in my memory. I wonder what happened? I'm not crying now. Nothing's happening. Heck now that I think about it, I can't even remember when I last cried. Maybe things no longer affect me as deeply as they once did.  
  
Maybe it's a sign of that maturity thing Sally's always on about.   
  
It wouldn't suit me anyway. Crying, I mean. Nobody likes a weepy hero. And I'm supposed to be strong, and crying would just show weakness, right? I'm strong, not weak. It's my destiny to be like that.  
  
Isn't it?  
  
I can hear my heart beat in my chest, waiting for the tears that will never come. I have a very fast heart-rate, you know. Faster than anyone alive, faster than anyone should be able to live.   
  
My metabolism is fast too.  
  
That's really an understatement, but anyway. I move at a quicker rate, in everything. Most of the time with the rest of the world scrambling to catch up. Even when I'm surrounded by thousands of people, my thoughts and I seem to inhabit our own solitary island that no one else can ever reach. It's hard to explain, but I'll try anyway.   
You just try to keep up.  
  
Have you ever experienced a moment in time where everything seems to slow, where an instant seems drawn into an eternity?  
  
No?  
  
Well, then this'll be harder than I thought.  
  
If you have, then you'll probably get this pretty quickly.  
  
Like I said; I'm fast. My heart rate is faster, my thinking is faster; I move faster; react faster. That's why I'm so impatient, I'm left waiting for so long, so often.   
  
An eternity to me is an instant to you.  
  
Always.  
  
There are times when I wonder how I keep sane. But I am. Or maybe I'm not. It's been questioned often enough - my sanity - by a surprisingly large amount of people actually.  
  
Makes me wonder.  
  
As I was saying, waiting drives me nuts. I hate it, I'm pretty sure everyone else does too, most of the time. But for me it's a perpetual irritation, one that I can't escape from.   
  
Maybe that's why I run.  
  
So people wonder why I talk so much, so needlessly. It's to fill that space. I babble, and I know it. But hours of silence - minutes to everyone else - are unbearable to me. In the silence I have to think, it's inevitable. As inescapable as the acceleration of my rapid heartbeat. So I talk, to avoid thinking. I talk a lot. So much that it annoys the hell out of a bunch of people. Sally; Knuckles in particular.  
  
He thinks I'm an idiot.   
  
But he never talks down to me...  
  
........  
  
Then again.  
  
Sally talks down to me, and that annoys me. Even when I don't understand what she's talking about - which happens more than I'd like. I think it's her revenge for my irritating habits.  
  
I pace too. She hates it when I pace. It's me telling her to hurry up.  
  
I tap my foot, usually to the beat of my heart actually. But no one knows that.  
  
She hates it when I start tapping.  
  
There's a lot of things Sally doesn't like about me. There are more that I don't like about myself.   
  
More on that later.  
  
So, I talk, I pace, I tap, all to avoid the inevitability of thought. And it is inevitable. So there's the crux. You're wondering what it is I think about.   
Some would say, not much. They'd be wrong. I think a whole lot more than I'd prefer, relating to almost everything. Why not, I have time on my side, for me it's almost timelessness. Not that it's a good thing, but I'm just saying.  
  
I fidget too. That's when I'm told to shut up and sit down. That's after I've driven everyone nuts of course. Maybe you'd be surprised if I said that doesn't take long. Not for me. So, I'm sitting, and I'm silent. But I'm not still. Never that. The beat of my heart thunders in my head, and I feel the pulse of my coursing blood, then I fidget. Eventually, I know this'll annoy them too.   
But I fidget anyway.  
It doesn't need to be anything in particular, just an internal game I play. Sometimes I move my hands, or swing my legs. Sometimes I drum my fingers - that's silent too of course - everyone's annoyed at this stage. With me, I mean. Better off staying quiet. Relatively so anyway. Until they stop giving me those dirty looks.  
  
It's beats the alternative - thinking.  
  
I'm selfish in the respect. I tend to drift when I fidget, which means they have to explain to me again, which makes them more annoyed. Which - eventually - makes me annoyed too. A no win situation I guess.  
  
I could focus more, I could listen carefully, and I could act more like the hero everyone wants. I could act normal.  
  
But then, what's normal?   
  
After what my life has become, how would I know? To suggest that my life isn't normal would probably be right, but - to be honest - I don't have the energy or the inclination to discover what normal might be.   
It's easier to just be, and accept what is.  
  
Almost.  
  
So, I'm a freak. That's fine by me. Makes me unique I guess. I'm not normal, but other than that I'm pretty cool. I mean, I'm the type to help out if I'm needed. No questions asked. But then that could be selfishness again. I'm the one who needs to be doing something. Helping others just fills that need.  
  
I'm not being callous here. Just honest.  
  
And even if I didn't need to help, I still would. Just looking around me would be enough reason to. Then there's Robotnik.  
  
No one should be able to do what he's done.   
  
The problem with helping, is that others always want something. Real friendship is hard, on a meaningful level anyway.   
  
But it doesn't bother me.  
  
Not at all.  
  
I always have a smile for everyone.   
  
On the outside anyway. It goes with the tapping and the fidgeting and the pacing. It's who I am, who everyone wants to see. I smile and people are assured. I suppose that's a good thing. Though you'll have to excuse my selfishness when I say that it does nothing for me. I don't get high on others happiness.   
  
Some do, but not me.   
  
I smile anyway.   
  
I'd be lying if I said there's no one who sees past it - the perpetual grin. There are. Just a few, mind you.   
Knuckles, surprisingly.   
Yes, he thinks I'm an idiot. But he never takes anything at face value anymore. Once bitten, twice shy. My babbling annoys him, but sometimes I wonder if he can see what it's hiding.   
And I'm nearly as good at hiding as I am at running.  
Tails.   
Not very often for him. But I think that's because he chooses to see only the smile. Nothing else. I'm not bothered. He's only a kid - a smart kid, smarter than me - but still a cub. And he looks up to me, so I'll forgive him. With me, flattery gets you anything you want.  
Sally.   
Yes, I annoy her too at times, but as I said, I annoy just about everyone occasionally. But I know she loves me. How could she not? I'm just so lovable, not a fault I can name.   
  
Or won't.   
  
Excuse my sarcasm.   
  
But yeah, she sees past the smile. Now and then. And I think it bothers her most of all. Sally is almost as smart as Tails. And she's always right where I'm wrong. She always right.  
  
Which means I'm-  
  
Nevermind.  
  
You see, when she sees through the grin, it proves she's mistaken. She doesn't like that. Sally knows I'm an arrogant, impatient, easygoing-not-a-care-in-the-world-kind-of-guy who lives to tease.  
  
Until I stop smiling.   
  
And the laughter dies.  
  
And she sees.  
  
And sometimes then, I see fear in her.  
  
I never say of course. Neither does she.  
  
Amy.  
Bet you didn't see that coming. Amy Rose, a girl who can rival me in sheer aggravation. She bugs me like I do others at times.   
Fate's karmic backlash maybe.  
She's clingy, childish, she squeals. Can you believe that? She actually does. I thought only pigs could pull that noise off, but then I heard her. My ears have never recovered. And more than that; she clings to me. She clings like I'm a lifeline and she's drowning, she really does.  
But she also sees me.  
She sees who I am. Actually, I think she sees me more than everyone else. And just like Sally, she never comments on it. Just about the only thing she's mature on.   
  
But unlike Sally, there's no fear.  
  
That boggles me.  
  
That a girl who clings with more tenacity than a leech - I have to admire her for that, if nothing else - may be the only one who might be able to handle the me past the hero and the smiles and the reckless antics.   
  
Isn't fate a bitch?  
  
No one ever said life was kind, but still... It's poetic justice I guess.  
  
Justice, or fate. Whatever. Neither are fair anyway. Fate is strange to me. Always has been. It's never kind, whispering in my head, with glimpses of mistakes in my mind's ear, allowing amends for deeds committed - or not - in the end leaving only the ghosts of their memory.  
And justice..?   
No such thing. Or if it exists, then Justice can be raped, her blindfold convenient for a gag. Her robe hitched by filthy, deceitful hands. And Justice can be depraved, Justice can be a whore, her scales like those presented by a gluttonous dictator with roaming eyes.  
  
God, that sounded poetic.   
  
Pathetic.  
  
She wears a blindfold though; Justice. She's blind.  
But still, I don't think she exists.  
If justice existed, then we'd all be happy. There would be no Robotnik, no senseless killing, no robotization, no hiding, no fleeing, no fighting. There'd be no unnamed graves. There's be no faceless bodies to be pulled from burning wreckage. Charred flesh, scorched skin that sticks and detaches. There's be no failed missions. There's be no orphaned children, crying, wailing and screaming. No dead parents, dead brothers and sisters. No mourning over those unnamed tombstones wondering... Wondering...  
  
And hoping.  
  
But as I said. Life's a bitch.   
  
Yeah...   
  
And then you die.   
  
Everything dies though. That's as inevitable as fate. That we're born dying. That sounds strange, I know. I heard it somewhere, from Sally maybe. It sounds like something she'd say. A paradox, she's like that.  
But death is indigenous to everything. We all know it. We're born; creatures groping for the grave; Death's innate in life, biologically programmed by the beats of our hearts.  
  
Though we deny it. It's in our nature to fight it.  
  
Take me for example. When I was just a kid, I found a dead bird high on a tree.( I like climbing. ) So I took it, and showed it, and I was told; Dear, it's dead, it breathes no more.  
Unbelievingly, I climbed back up that tree, bird in hand, sat it on a branch, then brushed it off, willing it to fly.  
  
It fell twenty feet.  
  
And I cried.  
  
There's a lot I didn't know then. There's a lot I don't know now. More it seems.  
  
I don't know a lot; full stop.  
  
So, I think - yes I have the ability - if death is so inbred in life, then why do we struggle against it? When you consider it like I have, it's the height of stupidity, but we still do it. It's part of nature, and how fragile we mortals be. We constantly seek reassurance that our decisions are right, that our lives aren't futile, aren't pieces of nothingness that will scatter like dust on the wind as soon as we are gone from this life.  
  
And we will go, let me assure of that. It's the one thing that's certain; the meaning of life is that it ends.  
  
But that doesn't stop me from thinking. As I said. I have time on my side. Though I try to occupy myself otherwise, eventually I submit. Always happens.  
  
Curious as to what I think about.... I'll bet. Sorry. I'll stop the sarcasm now.  
  
No, really.  
  
You want to know.... All right. People die, it's a fact of life. We struggle against it. Another fact. I'm only mortal - impossible as it may sound - also true. So, I fight it too. I fight all it's forms, whatever it may take. To me, Robotnik is the veritable grim reaper. Though the real thing is probably skinnier.  
  
I'm rambling again...  
  
So, people die, in this war - in all wars; it happens. Wars are there for the express purpose of killing people. They die...  
  
But...  
  
If I was stronger I could save them. Faster, and I could aid them. Smarter, and I could outwit him. I could beat him.  
  
I could. I should.  
  
They die.  
  
I'm left alive- living on borrowed lives.  
  
So, we're back to poetic justice again.  
  
My speed is my real advantage. I know it, they know it. Robotnik knows it. So what happens when he builds something faster than me? Something stronger, more agile, smarter, better. He will eventually.  
Or has he already?  
  
Then; I'll be dead.  
  
So maybe justice exists after all.  
  
My hands are stained with a lot of things, if you look. But what you can't see is the blood. It washes off. But they are. And with every death on my shoulders, every failure, that stain grows harder and harder to scrub off.  
Technically, I'm the hero. But people die anyway.   
  
Innocents are still killed outside the battlefield. I've stopped counting how many. People at the wrong place at the wrong time.  
  
How many people have lost their friends, parents, sisters, brothers... children due to my carelessness?  
  
And I am careless. I know this as well. I'm impulsive and brash, arrogant even. I know that.   
  
It's who I am.   
  
Who am I?   
  
I'm Sonic the Hedgehog.   
  
Does my name reflect anything about me? Some would say yes. It's what I do, how I am.   
  
Fast; Inconceivably fast; Impossibly fast; Unfairly fast.  
  
Should it, though?  
  
Most of the time I don't think so. But then, most of the time, I feel like I'm a symbol rather than a person. An icon to inspire, rather than the living; breathing; feeling; needing creature I am.  
  
Freedom; the concept, embodied in me.   
  
And I am free. As free as anyone can be with the lives of thousands on their shoulders, the death of thousands more in their dreams - nightmares. The hope and fate of a planet resting in their hands.  
  
Free?  
  
I'm just a vessel.  
  
I wonder, if you take me away, does freedom and hope go away as well? If I'm it's champion, then it would make sense, don't you think? Maybe I'm perpetuating a naive hope - optimism, faith, trust, whatever - that will never be valid.  
  
No one is ever really free.  
  
Then there's the question of who I'd be if circumstances were different. If I had been raised by my own family, if Robotnik had never staged the coup. I wonder if I'd be who I am now. If we'd be the same. Would I be free then?  
I wonder, that a name can mean so much.  
  
Sometimes I hate it.  
  
Sometimes I want my name to be Geoffrey or even Antoine. Something normal. I want to be one of those kids running around the village, their biggest worry nothing other than their next game. Whether to buy the blue runners or the green ones. I want to be able to flirt with girls, eat too much sugar, grumble about homework. To be normal.  
I want to live. Not exist. And I'd take any life to live, any life but the one I have. I want someone else to worry about the fate of the people and the world. I want someone else to decide what to do when Robotnik releases his robots and they attack and people run screaming. When that happens, I want to be the one hiding under my bed, waiting for it be all over.   
  
I'm just a hedgehog. A blue hedgehog.  
  
They call me Sonic. And they call me a hero.  
  
I don't know what that's supposed to mean. I have responsibilities, and I'll live up to them. I have to. There's too much at stake. But sometimes, late at night, alone and in the darkness. Thinking despite my best effort not to-  
  
I just want to be.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
~FINI~  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
O__O   
  
  
There.... And that was strange... And dark, I know. And probably quite un-Sonic like. But I gave an AU warning at the start... And in AU anything goes.  
The lyrics in the opening were just what I happened to be listening to while I was writing this. Even better; they fit.  
  
*Growls* And I really suck at writing first POV, and trying to capture what - to me - sounded like Sonic's line of thinking was nearly impossible.  
But I can't say I never tried...  
  
^_^;;  
  
Like I said, I have an open mind, and when I read I keep it that way. I also believe in the right to complete freedom of expression. And that can be in anything.  
  
So, a little fic for those who dare to be different.  
  
  
*Huggles and have a Happy New year!*  
  
Orin.  
  
  
The meaning of life is that it ends... - Kafka. 


End file.
